Role: VP of eCommerce and Marketing

Location: Austin, Texas

Sometimes a client approaches HireBetter with a pretty good idea of what they think they need in a new hire and they’re right.  Other times, we get a chance to shine when we help a client realize that a truly great hire can mean so much more for a company than they originally thought.  When Rick Lundbom came to HireBetter, he thought that he just wanted someone to manage his eCommerce and Marketing division.  Little did he know that we would deliver his right hand man who would quickly propel his business to new heights!

Intake:

Rick initially was really set on hiring a serious, but simple marketing person.  He wanted someone who had a very strong grasp of traditional e-commerce marketing principals AND was comfortable with big web data.  Furthermore, he wanted someone who was competitive and would thrive while working with his very young team (in his mid-30s, Lundbom is the resident “old guy” in the office).

He had a very specific model of an ideal candidate (even one “perfect” candidate in town who he said we would not be able to get) and a few specific types of candidates that he wanted to target.  He asked us to recruit those candidates first, but still use our expertise to find the right person for the role, whoever that was.

After we did a full intake evaluation, however, we realized that what the client really needed was a leader, someone with the leadership acumen AND technical skills to mentor and inspire his very young team.

Strategy and process:

As the client requested, we were sure to recruit the specific candidates that he wanted.  So we did.  And after we finished recruiting, we had three very strong candidates who met Rick’s criteria lined up and wanting the job:

• A candidate with both Internet and retailing experience?  Got it.
• One with e-commerce experience at a top 200 e-tailer?  Done.
• Someone like his ideal local guy?  We actually got the “perfect” one who he thought would be unattainable.

…But we also found someone better.  From the first time we met him, we had a feeling that Dave was the guy.  Dave didn’t really fit the mold of what Rick said he wanted; he started off in tech and had only later gained an affinity for marketing.  We convinced the client to at least give him a call, and though he remained interested in his other candidates, we could tell that he knew that we might be onto something.

Then came the Topgrading® interview…

After putting the candidates through the VERY thorough Topgrading® interview process, it became abundantly clear who was the right one for the job.  After four hours with Dave, Rick was totally sold.  Though he didn’t look like the candidate the Rick initially had in mind, he knew that Dave was an A-player.

Results:

He was right.  Not only has Dave been able to lead the eCommerce and Marketing division at Living Direct, he has become Rick’s right hand man.  “He’s earned my trust,” Rick said.  And more than that, his presence has allowed him to work on growing the company.

“We are up 30% year over year and Dave is a big part of that…but he’s also freed up my time to work ON my business instead of IN my business.”

Dave has been fitting in very well at Living Direct, and even allowed Lundbom to get some much needed R&R: “I was able to take a two-week vacation for the first time in a LONG time.”

There’s nothing better for us than to see our clients so surprised when they see how much great talent can help their business.  Rick Lundbom came to us looking for a simple marketing guru.  What he got was a leader for his company, trust in his new partner, and the time to live his life again.  We’re glad to have gotten to help.

Want to see how HireBetter can go above and beyond for you and your company?  Take a look at how we’ve helped other clients, and then drop us a line.  We’d love to show you how HireBetter can help take your talent to new heights.

So why is charisma so important in business? Olivia Fox Cabane, author of The Charisma Myth, says it is charisma that “makes people want to trust you and follow you…Employees of charismatic leaders experience greater work satisfaction, greater personal commitment, and exhibit higher productivity.”

Not just for bosses

But Cabane points out that charisma is not only important for leadership roles.  All employees can benefit from a healthy dose of charisma. It can often be the deciding factor in determining which ideas are heard in the workplace. Or it can help you when dealing with a particularly difficult co-worker. And everyone can agree that having charisma is beneficial when applying for a new job.  Cabane goes as far as to say that charismatic people are even “viewed as more attractive by their superiors.”

Charisma can be learned

So what’s a person to do who doesn’t have that charisma? Do you just hang up your hat and call it a day? Well, thankfully, for those of us with more introverted personalities, you’ll be glad to know that scientists have discovered that charisma is actually an acquired social skill; one that can be learned. Cabane points to Steve Jobs as a prime example. She suggests that with practice, anyone can learn to get into the right mindset and project the body language of a charismatic person.

Here at HireBetter, we frequently get feedback from Hiring Manager that charisma and personality, as well as skill set, played a role in your final hiring decisions.  That is why finding the best qualified candidate is just the first step for us. Using our process of behavioral interviewing, HireBetter is able to present you with candidates who are not just “qualified” for the job. We strive to present you with candidates who also have that “WOW” factor.  And that often comes from having an extra dose of charisma.

According to an article written in 2010, 70% of recruiters and hiring managers had rejected an applicant because of something they’d seen on Facebook.   Things such as “inappropriate” comments, “unsuitable” photos and videos, and “criticism” of employers, co-worker or clients.

But what else can Facebook reveal about a potential candidate?  According to a recent study done by Northern Illinois University, Facebook can help reveal the Big Five personality traits – openness, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism.  For example, people who have lots of pictures and discussion about travel on their Facebook profile indicates that they are open to new things. While someone who has a large number of friends on Facebook is indicative of an extrovert.

However, Don Kluemper, one of the study’s authors, says that companies really shouldn’t use Facebook to screen applicants until more research has been done.  He suggests that hiring managers continue to use personality tests which do a better job of predicting performance.

As mentioned in previous blogs, HireBetter uses behavioral interviews to provide a superior snapshot of a candidate’s personality.

The art of storytelling

Yes, “storytelling” is clearly the buzzword of this year’s conference.  Though many buzzwords are fluffy, overused, and destined to get on our nerves, they often come with a little bit of truth attached to them.  Indeed, as I think about what hiring managers and executives need to embrace to be competitive in the talent game, this idea of storytelling just fits all too well.

Innovators don’t want to stand still

If you want to attract the best, most innovative minds, you have to show them how their work at your company will enrich their careers and their lives.  Also, they need to know that their role at your company will be intellectually and professionally stimulating and allow them to grow.  If a prospective (or current) high-performer doesn’t understand their career trajectory and have a good idea of what their time with you will be like, don’t be surprised with you see them take a job with someone else.

Questions that job-seekers want answered:

• How will this position help me grow?
• Where will I be a year or two from now if I work for this company?
• How will this job change my life, both short and long-term?
• Will I be surrounded with other people who will challenge and inspire me to succeed?
• (And this last one is less related to storytelling, but it’s just something I’ve heard over and over and over again this week and would be remiss to leave out.)  Will I be expected to move into a management position?

On that last point… 

In regard to that last point above…I’ve come across quite a few very smart people who have left jobs because they were promoted into management and therefore taken off of “the front lines.”  For some, this is a career goal and a great honor.  For others, this is an obligation that they will accept (because “it’s the right thing to do”) and be miserable doing.  Make sure you are upfront with management expectations and trajectories from the very beginning, or you may promote someone right to their level of incompetence.

Be sure that you paint an enticing career story if you hope to attract and engage top digital talent, because if you don’t, someone else will.

Image used under Creative Commons license via brody4.

I’ll be blogging and tweeting throughout the week with ideas and questions about all sorts of talent issues and opportunities.  I hope to paint a picture of how to think about this special kind of talent.

If you’re attending SXSW this year, please let me know!  I’d love to meet in person.  If not, is there anything in particular that you’d like to know about high-tech, marketing, or media talent?  Let me know in the comment section below or Twitter, and I’ll see if I can figure out for you.

I’m looking forward to sharing what I learn with you, so keep an eye out for my coverage of SXSW 2012.

Topgrading® basics 

Topgrading® was created by Brad Smart back in the 1970s while he was working on his Ph.D. studies.  He decided that many companies’ inability to consistently hire top performers was unacceptable, so he began to develop what would become the Topgrading® methodology.

Topgrading® is a method for hiring and promoting top performers.  It is an objective, thorough, and tested way to determine which candidates are most likely to become A Players.  At the center of the methodology is the Topgrading® interview.

A Topgrading® interview

A Topgrading® interview will probably look different from most other interviews you’ve seen before.  It is intense.  Very intense.  Lasting four hours and relying only on facts about your interviewee’s past behaviors, this interview cuts through to the core of your candidate.  Candidates can’t really prepare for a Topgrading® interview, because it is specifically designed to strip them down and make it impossible for them to fabricate a false image of themselves.  It helps you collect facts and use those to make your decision.

These interviews are Comprehensive, In-depth, and Structured.  By following this structure closely, we objectively create a picture of each candidate’s personality, motivations, and probability of success.

Why we Topgrade

HireBetter uses Topgrading® because it works.  Its history of success goes back decades.   While working with Jack Welch at GE, Brad Smart helped them hire and promote employees who ended up being high performers ninety percent of the time!  We have been using Topgrading® with our clients for years, and we can deliver this same kind of success to your company.  Contact HireBetter to learn more.

Behavioral interviews make it much harder for candidates to put their spin on their responses because they employ a totally different mindset from traditional interviews.  Behavioral interview questions demand facts rather than opinions.  And this allows you, as the hirer, to make your own opinions of your candidate’s work, which is where the power should be.

Traditional interviews are easy to distort

A traditional interview might involve a query such as: “How do you deal with conflicts in the workplace?”  It’s designed to answer a very reasonable concern that any interviewer might have, but that question doesn’t solicit as valuable of a response as a behavioral one because it relies on an implied hypothetical situation.

The interviewee has the opportunity to answer a question like that from the perspective of their ideal self.  They can (without lying) say how they think that they would handle such a situation in the future.  Or they might respond with how they generally think they’ve dealt with such a situation in the past.  But the very fact that they’re sitting in a job interview will prime them for giving an answer that is based on what they think they are capable of, rather than what experience has shown to be true.

Behavioral interviews let you be the judge

Think about the response that you would get from that candidate if you asked the same basic question in a different way.  If you said, “Give an example of a time in the past that you had a conflict with a coworker.  What, specifically, did you do to settle the conflict, and what was the result?”  Won’t this give you an entirely different answer from the one we mentioned before?

Your interviewee is forced to deal in reality from the get-go.  By making your questions fact-based, you now have to opportunity to learn about a real person, not a hypothetical one.  What they actually do in a given situation is far more valuable to learn in an interview than what they think they can or should do.

“Who are you?” vs. “Who do you think you can be?”

Behavioral interviewing gives you, the employer, a chance to paint a picture of your candidate, and then you get to make your own assessment of how attractive they are.  It’s your job to determine what their strengths and weaknesses are, based on what their past experiences tell you.

At HireBetter, we rely on behavioral interviews because our experience has shown us that they provide a superior snapshot of a candidate.  In our post next week, we’ll explain the specific behavioral interviewing methodology that we use: Topgrading®.

Your solution, more likely than not, is that you need to hire a head of operations.  Depending on your size and stage, it could be a VP of Ops, Director of Operations, or Chief Operations Officer (COO).  [For purposes of this blog, we’ll simply refer to this position as the “COO.”]

I can’t tell you how many times through the years I’ve counseled emerging market CEOs on this (while at Ernst & Young, Tatum, or through my experience as a YPO’er).  So often, it simply comes down to hiring an A-Player as your number two.

“But we’re too small for a COO…”

…you might say, and you may be right, but maybe not.  You’d be surprised how a COO can add significant value to small and medium sized, middle-market businesses, just like they do for large ones.  Indeed, a COO might just be the piece that you’re missing.

Is it time for you to hire your number two?

Like any business decision, you should hire a chief operation officer if they will add more value to your company than they will cost you (obviously).  But how can you predict how much value they can add?

You need to consider how your new COO will free up your time and allow you to make your company more profitable.  What will you do instead of managing operational issues?  What can your COO do better than you?

• Will you drive new sales or make new partnerships that will grow your top line?
• Will your COO save you money by making your operations more efficient?
• Will you use your time to explore new strategies and/or markets to expand your business?

If you can come up with a forecast of how your financial situation will improve through ways like those I outlined above…and that’s more than you expect to pay a COO, then it’s time to hire up!  Keep your company moving up to the next level!

Trust is your most important asset

Your chief operating officer will likely be the most important (and most difficult) hire that you will ever make.  That’s because, in order for them to be successful, you will have to trust them with a job that, until now, you’ve chosen to do yourself.  Not only will you have to make sure that they have the skills and experience to be ready for the role, you have to trust their judgment and character.

How to find your COO

Please, don’t hire the first pretty face or impressive resume that walks through the door.  And don’t just go for the big name.  Just because they’ve been at GE for 10 years doesn’t mean that they are the right fit for your $15 million business.  In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

If you’re looking at someone who successfully transitioned a company from $15M to $50M and that’s also your goal…then you might just have a solid candidate: someone who has successfully accomplished the main 3 or 4 goals you have for your company and this position.

I’ve found that a behavior-based interview processes, like the Topgrading methodology, is a great way to build confidence in such an important hire.  That’s why we use Topgrading for our clients and our team at HireBetter.

A COO can be your new secret weapon

You, as a CEO, are uniquely positioned to make big changes to your company.  But if you get bogged down in daily activities, your hands are tied.  If it looks like you can create real value by breaking free of your daily obligations, consider hiring a COO.  It might be the most liberating decision that you can make for your company, and yourself.

If you think it might be time for you to hire a COO, please contact HireBetter.  We can work with you to help you determine exactly what the COO needs to accomplish, and then we deliver A-Players to you.

In the clip above, HireBetter’s founder, Jonathan Davis, explains how difficult it is for a candidate with a small-business background to “make the jump” to a large company, and vice versa.

The skills and attitudes which may have led to success in one kind of company may set someone up to fail in another.  Even though it may seem like a good idea hire someone from a big company for a small company (or the other way around) some time, it’s a very risky move.  Here’s what our statistics show:

• Hires moving from big companies to small companies fail two thirds of the time.
• Hires moving from small companies to big companies fail four out of five times!

That’s more of a risk than you want to take, especially considering how expensive bad hires are.  Bear this in mind when you’re looking to make your next hire.

For more insights that we’ve learned from years of hiring experience, keep reading the HireBetter Blog and subscribe to our YouTube page.

Have you applied that same principal to planning your workforce?  Purposeful workforce planning provides an assessment and a decisive action plan.  And considering how the right team is the most critical attribute of a successful company, don’t you think you should do it right?

A HireBetter shortcut

We can help, and we’ve developed a simple tool to assist you.  This download will make it easier for you to visualize your goals and plan the steps you need to take to achieve them.

Our complimentary Workforce Planning Tool will help you:

• Keep track of high performers inside of your company
• Make note of who needs additional coaching
• Be sure that your Team lives up to your Core Values
• Pinpoint who you need to hire each quarter
• And much more!

Click here to download your very own Workforce Planning Tool, compliments of HireBetter.

Planning is the first step, but not the last 

Our tool will help you get started, but it takes a real expert to truly know what (and who) you need.  If you really want to make a meaningful plan and start building a team that will lead your company to future success, contact HireBetter.

Image used under Creative Commons from adesigna.